The Persuasion Effects of Time Pressure and Source Expertise in an Audit Setting: An Elaboration Likelihood Application

摘要

Several limitations of this study should be considered. First, students were used as subjects. Though this study included thorough training materials on loan analysis, many students were overly conservative in their reserve recommendation. In fact, 24 of the subjects recommended larger loss reserves after reading the persuasive message. Auditors may not have exhibited his "boomerang" effect. Second, time pressure was only applied during the reading of the one-page memo. While the manipulation check indicated there was a perceived difference between high and low time pressure, it may not be comparable to the perceived time pressure in an audit situation.rnOverall, the results do not support the ELM-based predictions when source expertise acts as an extraneous cue. However, post-hoc analysis reveals that subjects considered source expertise at least as important as the persuasive arguments when making their decision. Further research is needed to determine how this variable operates in an audit context or how other message variables might affect persuasion under time pressure in an audit situation.